The tribute vice pays to virtue

John Quiggin13 Comments

It’s worth recording that JI leader Abu Bashir has denounced the latest Bali bombing. Of course this is stinking hypocrisy – Bashir has been up to his neck in terrorism. If he had really changed his views, he would have confessed his previous involvement and repudiated his past actions and words including his praise for bin Laden.

Still, it is significant that Bashir feels the need to make such a statement. Partly no doubt he’s trying to get out of jail as soon as possible. But it’s also an indication that he realises how little popular support he has in Indonesia. If he had a strong support base he would be defying the authorities, and seeking a triumphant release, rather than currying favour with statements like this.

Finally, although it’s unlikely that Bashir has any connection with day-to-day operations, this statement makes it more likely that the latest attack was carried out by a splinter group and that some associated with JI have realised the futility of their resort to terrorism, particularly domestic terrorism.

Weekend reflections

John Quiggin21 Comments

Weekend Reflections is on again. Please comment on any topic of interest (civilised discussion and no coarse language, please). Feel free to put in contributions more lengthy than for the Monday Message Board or standard commnets.

Gaia and Intelligent Design

John Quiggin12 Comments

I was thinking about various forms of pseudo-science, and it struck me that the Gaia Hypothesis (in its strong version) is probably the most plausible version of Intelligent Design. Google reveals that this thought is far from original, and that something very like it has been pushed by some supporters of ID, such as Dembski.

In my view, the Gaia hypothesis is a variant on the anthropic principle. The fact that we’re here on earth implies that the planet must have developed in a way that sustains life, but this observation is, as Nick Bostrom says of the anthropic principle “too weak to do any real scientific work.”

Human Rights Act Campaign

John Quiggin29 Comments

New Matilda is running a campaign for Australia to introduce a Human Rights Act. I meant to post about their launch, which was on Wednesday, but I’ve been rushed with work and harassed by spammers. Anyway, have a look at the site and see what you think.

I’ve never given really careful thought to the question of a Human Rights Act or Bill of Rights, but obviously the issue is sharper now, with so many people willing to throw away basic rights in the hope that this will help to stop terrorism. So throw in some comments, and I’ll try to give a considered response later on.

Hard Cash and Climate change

John Quiggin32 Comments

Tim Worstall gets us past that pesky NYT paywall to link approvingly to a John Tierney column arguing that the way to encourage energy conservation in the US is not to fiddle with standards but to raise prices. Broadly speaking I agree. At a minimum, getting prices right is a necessary condition for an adjustment to sustainable levels of energy use. Nevertheless, the rate of adjustment and the smoothness with which adjustment takes place can be greatly enhanced by the adoption of consistent pro-conservation policies, or retarded by the adoption of inconsistent and incoherent policies.

This is as good a time as any to restate the point that, given a gradual adjustment, very large reductions in energy use and CO2 emissions can be achieved at very modest cost. Rather than argue from welfare economics this time, I’ve looked at the kind of adjustments that would be needed to cut CO2 emissions from motor vehicle use (one of the least responsive) and argued that price increases would bring this about over time, without significant pain.

Nicholas Gruen has some related thoughts
Read More »

Singularity draft review (crossposted at CT)

John Quiggin8 Comments

My draft review of Ray Kurzweil’s Singularity is below. Comments much appreciated, and thanks to commenters on an earlier post.

Update Lots of great comments here and at Crooked Timber. This will improve the final version a lot, and is one of the ways in which blogging works really well for me.

I’ve finally received my copy of Ray Kurzweil’s Singularity, which was posted to me by its American publisher six weeks ago …
Read More »

Comment problems

John Quiggin8 Comments

Having deleted some comments myself, I now seem to be having problems with comments disappearing by some process I can’t follow. I’m looking into it, but if you have a point of great eloquence to make, save it on your own system before committing it to the ether.

Update The problem seems to have been caused when I IP-blocked a particularly persistent spammer. I’ve gone back to manual moderation (groan), so comments seem to be coming through OK.

Nobel

John Quiggin18 Comments

Congratulations to Barry Marshall and Robin Warren, winners of the 2005 Nobel Prize for Medicine for the discovery that stomach ulcers are caused, not by stress as was formerly believed, but by a bacterium Helicobacter pylori. This is a classic Nobel-type discovery beginning with Warren’s acute observation, and continuing with Marshall’s work in culturing and identifying the bacterium.

It’s a striking observation that, thirty years ago, nearly everybody “knew” two things about stress: it was the primary cause of ulcers and it was particularly common among people men in executive jobs. Although widely held, these beliefs had never been properly tested by research and both turned out to be false. Surprising as it may seem, it’s more stressful to be ordered about than to order other people about. More precisely, the prevalence of stress-related diseases increases as you go down hierarchies of authority, status and so on.

The Nobel Prize for Economics[1] must be coming up soon. I have some ideas as to who should win, but as I’m very peripherally involved in the selection process, I’ll keep them to myself.

fn1. Strictly speaking, the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel

Solidarity with Indonesia

John Quiggin15 Comments

Most people have made up their minds already about the way the US, Australia and other Western countries should respond to terrorism, and I’ve stated my own views plenty of times, so I’ll focus on a different issue.

The latest terror attacks, although directed at foreign tourists, are first and foremost an attack on Indonesia and the Indonesian people. It seems pretty clear that Bali is a favoured target in part because the local population is largely (though by no means entirely) non-Muslim and the killers regard any of their fellow-citizens who do not share their religious beliefs as worthy of death. Their aim, along with groups like the unlamented Laskar Jihad is to promote civil war and the overthrow of democracy in Indonesia, so that they can implement their idea of an Islamic caliphate.

Fortunately their actions have been counterproductive. The Iraq war has been highly unpopular, but the great achievement of JI has been to make themselves even more unpopular. The Indonesian people have, with few exceptions, rejected terrorism and radical Islamism and the Indonesian government has responded effectively. In both the Bali and Jakarta bombings, there have been numerous arrests and convictions. It’s unfortunate that they couldn’t nail Abu Bashir for his most serious crimes, but it was better to stick to the rule of law than to make this evil man a martyr by violating it (and of course a conviction would have been much more likely if his main lieutenant, Hambali, had been handed over to the Indonesians, instead of being held by the US ).

The outcome we’ve seen is all the more impressive when we remember that only a few years ago, Indonesia was a corrupt dictatorship riddled with religious/ethnic strife in Ambon, Aceh and other places.

Whatever our differences with Indonesia, this is a time for solidarity with its governmetn and people.